Rand Racing - Daytona final practice

Daytona International Speedway
final practice, July 3, 2002

nouveau ride

Rand Racing was first and second in the SRPII class in final practice for 
Thursday's Rolex Sports Car Series race at Daytona International Speedway.  
Anthony Lazzaro was  quickest of the team, covering the 3.56-mile infield 
road course in one minute 51.031 seconds in the No. 7 Nissan Lola.  His 
co-driver Jerry Nadeau, who usually pilots a NASCAR Winston Cup car, drove 
the Lola for the first time Wednesday evening.

"I had a lot of fun," Nadeau said.  "The car just reacts incredible, more 
than anything I've ever driven.  It's got great brakes, the car's really 
controllable, it's just a blast!  I ended up looking in my rear-view mirror 
too much, waiting for the fast cars to come by, but it didn't seem like there 
were many coming by, so it was fun."

tough session

Niclas Jönsson set the second-quickest SRPII time (1:51.164) in the No. 8 
Lola, but contact with another car spun him into the wall.  He was okay and 
the car sustained only minor gearbox damage and torn rear bodywork.  It will 
be repaired and ready for Thursday's scheduled 11:15 pm race start.

"We were trying to get a good baseline for the race and we tried a few small 
thing to get a really good balance for the race," Jönsson said.  "I came off 
NASCAR turn four and I got hit from behind by one of the Dyson [prototype] 
cars.  Before I knew it, I was turned around and spun three or four times 
before I hit the inside wall."

double results

Rand Racing uses its two-car team to double track results.  Team engineer 
Jeff Braun said the team starts both cars with the same setup, then 
implements different changes on them.  By splitting the workload, the team 
maximizes the results of test and practice sessions.

"The trick to a two-car team is to use a one-hour session and get two hours 
worth of information," Braun explained.  "It takes drivers who can 
communicate quickly and who have similar driving styles, so we can apply what 
one driver finds on one car directly to the other car, and know that driver 
is going to like it.  Yesterday, we tried aerodynamic things on one car and 
mechanical things on the other car, so were able to do two hours of work in 
one hour.  It gives us an advantage because we get twice as many guesses!"

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Sylvia Proudfoot
403 287 3945
spur07@cs.com